


desire burns in your eyes (as my pencil strokes the page)

by gracefulhearts



Series: there is beauty in art (and also in you) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Art School, Ben and Rey don't like each other, F/M, but there are definitely benefits, not enemies with benefits, not friends with benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:53:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22190620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulhearts/pseuds/gracefulhearts
Summary: Rey shifts in her seat and her mouth dries. She recognizes that feeling now, the one that she felt when he praised her.It’s desire.As hard as she’s tried, she can’t stop herself from wanting him; Ben Solo is irresistible.“Do it.” Challenge is laced through his tone as his warm breath meets her skin. “Kiss me.”
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: there is beauty in art (and also in you) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597324
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	desire burns in your eyes (as my pencil strokes the page)

The art studio on this side of campus at Corellia University, one of the most prestigious art universities in the country, is Rey’s favorite place to be.

There are a few studios on campus, but there’s a required one for every class, and for her figure drawing class, it happens to be studio 2B. 

All of the studios look the same: wide rooms with white, textured cement walls covered with posters used for inspiration, some of people and some of landscapes. There are rows of white, wooden tables with chairs pushed into them. Along the far wall of every room is a row of windows with blinds hanging over them, which provide natural light, and overhead are rows of rectangular florescent lights.

It’s nearing the end of the semester, which means that most of the students are at the studio early in the morning and don’t leave until late in the evening.

Except, apparently, on the weekends. Most of them probably take at least morning off or choose to work from home. Whatever the reason, studio 2B happens to be empty on this particular Saturday morning at the tail end of March.

Rey Niima, a second-year art major, flicks on the light and doesn’t bother shutting the door or opening the blinds before she sits down at a table and spreads out her papers. Before she starts to work, she covers the table in a large piece of paper so as to not get ink on the wood.

She’s in a figure drawing class that is not only frustrating but downright awful; the professor is rude and doesn’t give feedback on their projects even though it was in the syllabus.

Not to mention Ben Solo is in the class, which makes it even more unbearable. After that first week with him, Rey considered dropping the class since she couldn’t stand to hear another comment about his _amazing_ work when it isn’t even that good. (Deep down, she knows that it is.)

 _So_ he probably came out of the womb holding a pencil and paper, _so_ his uncle is one of the most famous painters in the world, it doesn’t make him any more special than the rest of them and he certainly shouldn’t get praised for doing the bare minimum.

She flips open her sketchbook to her latest drawing, of a person sitting on a swing, their feet hanging off the side. The proportions are all wrong.

_Dammit._

The longer Rey stares at the drawing, the more she hates it. Her eye fixes on one of the pictures attached to the wall, of a girl in a ponytail sitting on a bench while autumn leaves fall around her. It’s a black and white picture, probably so whoever is drawing it can fill in their own colors, and since she has to have a picture to present to the class on Tuesday, she decides to start with that picture.

She works for about an hour, looking up at the picture and down at her paper to make sure she gets everything exactly right, except this is harder than she thought it would be.

She sighs after erasing the one side of the face for what feels like the millionth time. Sliding her sketchbook next to her and dropping her head unceremoniously into her hands.

“Why can’t I get this _right_?” she groans to the empty room, knowing that she’s not going to get an answer.

“You’re overthinking it,” a deep voice says from behind her, and internally, she screams.

Of _course_ Ben Solo is here.

She lifts her head and spins around to face him. “What are you doing here?”

He pulls out the chair next to hers and sits, never taking his eyes off her drawing as he moves. “I’m in this class too. I can use this studio. I have to finish Tuesday’s project.”

“I thought I–” A glance back at the door tells her that she did not close it, like she’d thought.

“The facial structure is too round,” he continues, gesturing to the page in front of her, “it’s not a circle, it’s more of an oval, and it’s a little easier if you draw it in sections, in lines, rather than one big stroke of your pencil.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Rey hisses.

Ben gives her a bored look and swipes his hair out of his eyes. “Do you want to do well on this project?”

“Why do you care?”

“Rey.”

She freezes at the sound of her name. That first week of class, he told her that her drawing was so bad that she should just drop the class altogether because there was no point in taking it, despite it being required for her major. “Yes, I want to do well. That first week of class you told me that I should drop the class, why are you trying to help me?”

He looks, for a second, like he’s going to give a serious answer, but all he says is, “That’s none of your business.”

“Then I don’t have to take any of your advice.”

“You’re right, you don’t.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Rey can feel herself growing more irritated the longer that they sit there in silence.

“Can I?” he asks, gesturing to the pencil in front of her as he props his chin up in his hands.

She nods, crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t even know why you’re helping me. I’m basically a lost cause at this point, and you said so yourself! That really plummeted my confidence.”

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. 

Ben smirks at her, leans back in his chair. “You care what I think of you.”

It isn’t a question.

Anger spreads through her, hot and thrumming through her veins, like fire.

The way his eyes feel like they’re piercing into her soul is enough to make Rey shiver.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and she looks away before seeing the smirk widen.

“You said it, so there must be some sort of truth to it.”

“Does it matter? Can we just get on with this?”

“As you wish.”

With that, he picks up the pencil and turns to a fresh page. “It’s easiest if you start with soft lines, because faces – and, ultimately, figures – aren’t meant to be all jagged edges and hard lines. Unless that’s the effect you’re going for, but in this case, I don’t think so.”

He starts with one solid line followed by a bunch of smaller, softer, ones, and soon enough, there’s a perfectly proportional head in front of them.

“I hate how good you are at this,” she grumbles, taking the pencil he offers her.

“The head needs a body, doesn’t it? Why don’t you start on the shoulders?”

She does, spends extra time making sure that the curves of the shoulders are exactly the same on both sides.

“Not bad,” he tells her, sounding sincere. “Keep going, draw the arms.”

Something stirs low in her stomach at the sound of his encouragement, but she ignores it. She hates him, would rather be anywhere else in the world than this empty art studio with him, yet the sound of praise dripping from his lips makes her feel things. 

Things she doesn’t want to be feeling, at least not toward Benjamin Solo.

The fingers are where she fucks up. None of them are the same width, and Rey finds herself laughing bitterly as she drops her pencil, sets her chin in her hand.

“I can’t do this,” she mumbles into her hand.

“Rey, yes you can. You just need to believe in yourself.”

Silence falls between them as she picks up the pencil again and continues to work. After a few tries, she still can’t get the fingers the same width.

“Do you want me to help you, or would you rather figure it out?” he asks.

“Considering I don’t even understand why you’re helping me in the first place, I’ll figure it out.”

It’s been about half an hour, and he’s been quiet, leaving her to work in peace, listens to her frustrations but letting her work through them.

“Do you want to know why I’m helping you?”

She doesn’t look up from the paper as she nods.

“Art takes a lot of patience, and when I first started drawing, I didn’t have a lot of it,” he starts, his voice quiet, and Rey keeps doing what she’s doing as he talks. Perhaps that’s the secret to getting Ben to talk, just listening to him, because he keeps going. “I would be frustrated because the drawings in my head never looked the way that I wanted them to on paper.”

“Don’t end this by telling me I’m just like you, because I’m not.”

“You’re much more level-headed than I am. If someone had said to me what I said to you that first week, I probably _would_ have dropped the class.”

“Huh, that sounds almost like an apology.”

“The thing about making your way as an artist in this world, to be paid for what you do, is that you have to be strong. You have to have thick skin and be willing to not give a fuck what people think of you. If someone hates your work, it shouldn’t matter as long as you love it. As long as you know that you put every piece of yourself into it and gave it your all.”

She looks at him then, the pencil still in her hand. “So what you’re saying is, if I don’t like something, I shouldn’t put it out into the world?”

“Exactly. You only want to put things out that you’re proud of.”

Rey looks at the paper in front of her. “I’m not proud of this.”

“Then change it. You have the power to do that, you are completely in control of what you’re doing.”

She sets down the pencil and stares at him. “I don’t know what to draw.”

“You can draw me.” His voice is quiet and he’s not looking at her.

Rey snorts. “Of course you’re so vain that you’d want to see a drawing of yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not denying it.”

That’s when it dawns on her, that he’s fueling her fire by not answering her questions, not being offended by what she’s saying, because–

“Oh,” she breathes out, suddenly understanding, “you don’t actually care what I think of you, that’s why you’re not offended. That’s why you haven’t answered any of the questions that I asked.”

A ghost of a smile crosses his mouth, so quickly she thinks that she might be imagining it. “You’re a regular Nancy Drew, Rey Niima.”

“If I were to draw you, wouldn’t that be a little weird, since you’re sitting right next to me? Considering I have to present this to the class?”

“I’ll move in front of the table so that you can look at me better. This can just be for practice.”

She thinks about it. “I’ve never used a model before.”

“It’s not as hard as you think. Actually, I prefer it, because then you can look at the person up close.”

“Okay.”

His eyes brighten for a second, but then he moves his chair to the front of the room and sits, so she doesn’t see if the brightness stays. “I’ve never been a model before.”

“What, is Ben Solo nervous?” she asks, bringing her own chair in front of the table so that she can be closer to him. For research purposes, of course, it has nothing to do with the sudden urge to press her lips to his and tangle her hands in his long hair.

“I get nervous, sometimes. People think I’m this really great artist because of who my uncle is, but I’m not. Well, it has nothing to do with him, I just put in a lot of work and it got me to where I wanted to be.”

She stares at him. From where she’s sitting, she can see the freckles that dot his face, the scar that’s right below his hairline. His eyes meet hers when she looks at them, so she quickly moves on.

"Would it be okay if I take off my shirt?"

She nods and can’t tear her gaze away from the wide expanse of his chest as his shirt flutters to the floor. Can’t help noticing that there are freckles in random places, can’t shake the image that pops into her head of her running her hands from his shoulders down, down his chest, to the waistband of his black jeans . . .

“You’re staring.” His dark eyebrows are raised.

Rey averts her eyes, looks back down at the sketchbook in her hands. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see that his expression has relaxed. “Sorry, I just . . .”

“Don’t like it when people look at you?”

She’s serious, has been wondering if that’s true, and, judging by the way he frowns, her remark hit close to the truth.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“A lot of people think you’re attractive, you know. I mean, _I_ don’t, because I don’t even like you. Just because you have a pretty face doesn’t give you the right to be an absolute asshole.”

“I really appreciate it.” Ben’s voice drips with sarcasm.

Her cheeks flame as she sets pencil to paper, her eyes flicking up to study him every minute or so. “Right. Well, at least I’m not drawing you fully naked.”

“Thank God.”

She works in silence, looks at him for a long moment before turning back to her paper. 

“What is your problem?” she asks suddenly. “Why are you such a dick to everyone?”

“We’re still on this?”

“I just – it’s making me crazy. Like, being here with you. First you insult me, and then you help me for reasons I don’t understand. I can’t figure you out.”

He gives her a crooked smile, and she narrows her eyes. “Maybe that’s all part of my act. Emo art student who’s too mysterious.”

“You can’t be serious for one second, can you?”

Ben’s quiet, doesn’t answer her question. Rey isn’t sure why she’s still hoping that he will. “I don’t trust anyone, that’s why I’m a dick.”

“At least now you acknowledge it,” she mumbles, her pencil scribbling across the page as she works on evening out his shoulders.

“Maybe if you keep your snarky comments to yourself, I’ll actually tell you something,” he snaps.

Her eyes meet his as she bites her lip between her teeth. “Fine.”

Rey is just finishing up the curve of his second shoulder when he starts talking again.

“My uncle is very famous. One of his pieces got a write-up in the New York Times, and the author wrote about him. At the gallery showing after that, all of his paintings sold for millions. It kind of got to his head, and because he was so worried about what people think of him and how his next works are going to be received, he hasn’t produced another painting in years.

“And now that I’m here, at Corellia, people think all sorts of things about me. That I only got in because Luke Skywalker pays my tuition. That I’m just trying to copy him and it’s not going to work. None of those are true, but people just say whatever the fuck they want.”

She doesn’t think he’s going to say any more, since he stops talking, but what she’s learned about Ben in the hour and a half or so that he’s been here is that he doesn’t offer up information all at once about himself, it comes in bits and pieces.

Rey hates that she’s intrigued.

Ben reaches up to scratch the back of his neck which gives Rey the chance to study his arms. Yes, they’re full of muscle, but he moves gently, gracefully. She isn’t sure she can quite capture that in her drawing, isn’t sure if she wants to.

“I don’t let people in anymore,” he starts, looking out the window. “In high school, people figured out who my uncle was and that he was my uncle, and then they started trying to get close to me because of him. The same thing happens here occasionally. I’m not – I’m not looking for your pity or anything, it just felt good to tell someone.”

She nods, not really knowing what to say, how to answer.

“Rey.”

The pencil jerks across the page at the way he says her name. Even though he’s said it over the course of the day, this time, there’s something different about it. A softness to it, one that she hadn’t realized was absent before.

“What?”

“You seem tense.”

“I . . .” She sets down her sketchbook and gazes at him. It’s not like she can say, _oh, you said my name softly so now I’m freaking out. Sorry, there must be something in the water._

“I’m fine,” she lies.

“You can come here, if you want. You don’t have to sit so far away.”

Rey’s chair scrapes against the floor as she pulls it closer to him. “Happy?”

“Extremely.”

Ben’s mouth twitches like he’s holding back a smile, but she’s continued with her drawing, so she doesn’t see it. Her eyes land on his lips the next time she looks at him, but she doesn’t mean for them to.

“You can touch me, if you want. It might help you get the drawing, the proportions, right.”

Rey slowly brings up her hand up to his face. She starts at his forehead and drags her fingers down, over the slope of his nose, but she stops before she reaches his lips, unsure if she should keep going.

“Go ahead.” His breath is cool against her palm and his eyes are fixed on hers.

Electricity pulses through her as she takes a deep breath. The room suddenly feels hot as she traces the outline of his lips with her hands. 

They’re softer than she would have thought, plumper and rounder. Even though Rey has seen them, especially now that she’s seen them up close, it’s different to actually touch his lips.

Her hand carefully maps out a path down his neck, from the corner of one shoulder to the other, but she can’t bring herself to keep moving down.

Ben takes her fingers in his and guides her hand down his arms, down his chest.

“Was that so hard?” he murmurs, looking at her with dark, lust-filled eyes. Their joined hands rest on his thigh.

Rey shifts in her seat and her mouth dries. She recognizes that feeling now, the one that she felt when he praised her.

It’s desire.

As hard as she’s tried, she can’t stop herself from wanting him; Ben Solo is irresistible.

She looks at his lips then drags her eyes up to his, excruciatingly slow on purpose. “No.”

He leans close to her, presses his forehead against hers. She squeezes his hand tightly, and he smirks.

“Do it.” Challenge is laced through his tone as his warm breath meets her skin. “Kiss me.”

Her sketchbook falls to the floor as Rey uses her free hand to grip his hair. She closes the distance between them, her eyes fluttering closed as their lips meet. 

His lips are as soft against hers as they were against her fingers, and he reaches a hand around to the small of her back, pushes her closer to him.

Without breaking the kiss, she maneuvers herself off her chair and into his lap. 

Her legs wrap around his waist, and as they kiss, she can feel his half-hard cock pressing up against her. 

Ben slips his tongue into her mouth as she lifts the hem of her shirt up to her shoulders, and then detaches her lips from his to pull it the rest of the way over her head, unclasps her bra and lets them fall to the floor.

He wraps his hands around her waist and looks over her shoulder. “Wait here.”

Before she can answer, he lifts her off of him and sets her on the chair before making his way over to the entrance of the studio and shuts the door. She hears the lock click into place.

His waist is eye-level with her as he stops in front of her, and she can see his dick straining against his jeans.

“Sorry,” she tells him as she stands. She’s still a good few inches shorter than him. “I’m guessing neither of us thought to close the door.”

He stares at her, captures her lips in his before he answers. “I’m guessing neither of us thought that this would be happening.”

She wraps her arms around his neck as they kiss. “What exactly is happening?”

“We’re kissing.”

“Yeah,” she takes his lower lip between her teeth and tugs, drawing a low moan from the back of his throat. Rey pulls away, a satisfied smirk on her face. “I got that.”

“Boost my confidence, why don’t you.”

“I’m just telling it like it is, Ben. I meant after the kissing, obviously.”

He snorts as he pulls away, and there’s fire in his eyes. “I want you, Rey.”

The desire that’s been building in her stomach breaks, flooding through her. “I want you, too.”

“Tell me how you want me.”

Rey surveys the room, before her eyes land on the table that she’d been working at before he came in. “That table works, right?”

She can see him swallow hard before answering, and the lust in his eyes burns brighter. “Yeah. Do we need a condom?”

“I’m on the pill, but it wouldn’t hurt to also use a condom,” she replies, reaching down and pulling off her pants. She means to pull her pants and underwear off all at once, but it doesn’t work, and her underwear are still on.

He nods, fumbling in his back pocket for his wallet. Ben takes out the foil packet and throws it on the table before he unbuttons his jeans, and then, seconds later, his pants and boxers are on the ground.

Her underwear falls to the floor as he reaches for her, pulling her to him as his hand curves around her waist and starts to snake lower.

Rey covers his hand with hers, stopping it as she shakes her head and leads them over to the table. “There’s no time, someone might come banging on this door at any minute.”

He lies down, his black hair falls off the table as he opens the packet and rolls on the condom, then turns to look at her. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she answers, going over to the table and lying on top of him, greedily pressing her lips to his while she throws her leg over his waist and leans down, feels the cool air of the room on her bare skin. The only thing she can focus on is the guy underneath her and the lust that fills his eyes; the yearning that fills her, and she wants him, now.

Rey slides onto him, and it definitely takes a minute to get used to the size of him. He’s just so big, but it’s so good once he’s all the way inside her; his dick fills her up, and she almost moans at the feeling.

“I want to hear you,” he tells her, his voice low as he stares into her eyes, and she nods as she pulls back and thrusts down onto him.

His hand ghosts down her shoulders before stopping just above her breast, and her breath hitches in her throat as she clutches his hair around her fingers.

“Ben, _please_.”

“What?” he rasps.

“Touch me,” she says against his mouth, her voice just above a whisper, and he kneads her breast with one hand, deepens the kiss as he does. 

When Rey comes, it’s with a cry as bliss begins to overtake her, and she collapses against his chest, lets her eyes fall closed as she feels the heat of Ben’s skin and the sheen of his sweat on her forehead. He follows not long after, tilts back his head and whispers her name into the air between them, over and over. 

“You never worked on your project,” Rey muses much later, as they’re leaving the studio.

Ben looks away from her, like he’s embarrassed, out at the swirling pinks and blues that the setting sun creates in the sky. “I kind of forgot about it once I started helping you.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“I did, but then I didn’t,” he explains.

“Wow, when you put it like that, it sounds so simple.”

He shrugs, looks back at her. “We fucked, it was good. Now I don’t hate you.”

“Did you still hate me when we were fucking?”

“Jury’s still out on that.”

A slow smile spreads across her face, and now she’s the one to look out towards the sun. “If you thought it was good, would you want to do it again?”

“That depends, do you hate me?”

“Not anymore.”

“. . . Did you while we were having sex?”

“Unclear.”

“Would you want to do this again?”

Rey finally glances at him. “I asked you first.”

“Yes,” he answers immediately.

“Agreed. So, where does that leave us? Enemies with benefits?”

Ben’s eyebrows raise as he laughs. It’s the first time she ever hears him really, truly, laugh, and she has to say, she doesn’t hate it. “I thought we just got done saying we didn’t hate each other.”

“The other name I can think of for people who know each other but have sex is friends with benefits, and I don’t know if I would call us friends.”

“You’re right. How about we don’t put a label on it? We just . . . do what feels right for us.”

Rey nods slowly as they reach the end of the path that connects the art studios to the main part of campus. “That works.”

He stops, takes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to her. “Here, put your name in my phone, I’ll text you.”

She does, gives his phone back to him, shuffles from one foot to the other because she doesn’t know what else to do, what else to say. “Um, thanks for all of your help on the project.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you around, Rey.”

With that, Ben turns, and walks left down the sidewalk.

She watches him go for a moment before turning and heading in the opposite direction, towards her apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, check out my other fic, [Fallingwater](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687550/chapters/51726322)! Also you can follow me over on Twitter at gracefulhearts!


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